It said Thursday that the book Ehud Olmert is writing contains "sensitive security issues" and his lawyer was caught leaving the prison with a chapter on "secret operations" not approved by the censor for publication.

Police searched the publishing house of the Yediot Ahronot newspaper, but not the paper itself, it said.

Olmert was a longtime fixture in Israel's hawkish right wing when he took a dramatically more conciliatory line toward the Palestinians about a decade ago.